EPISODE 20

I have always been into fishing and with New York being so close to the ocean, only about 100 miles from the fabled beaches, over priced real estate and the waters of the Hamptons, I figured it might make some sense to take a trip there.  I spent a lot of summers out there as a kid, visiting my aunt and uncle in Bridgehampton.  When I was in high school though, those visits tapered off as I discovered the wonderful world of recreational drugs and other types of anti-social behavior.  I went out to Long Island again a few times during the summer months when I was in college.  I had a couple of friends who owned a boat that they moored at North Sea Harbor in Southampton.  We’d go out on it early in the morning, looking for bluefish and striped bass, only to return in the early afternoon, red faced from all of the sun and red eyed from all the pot and beer we’d consumed.  It never occurred to us that our non-angling activities on the water might somehow have slowed our reflexes, thereby allowing the fish that actually did strike at our lines a more than even shot at escape.  

I decided to take up an offer from Les to join him on his Boston Whaler for a day of tooling around the waters between North Sea and the Shinnecock Inlet. Les had told me that he felt pretty guilty about the whole incident with Universal Hair and the car going down the elevator shaft.  So as a way to make him feel better about everything, he asked me if I wanted to go fishing.  I realized that this was as close to an apology as he was ever going to offer and that a fishing trip was also just exactly what I needed.  What the hell.  I’ve never been able to resist a chance to go fishing anyway.

Contrary to what you might think, I did not grow up in a family that fished together. Although it’s true that my mother taught me the basics of the double haul cast the summer I turned 12 (she handed me a seven and a half foot five weight rod and bade me cast it into the chlorine cleared waters of my grandfather’s backyard swimmingpool until I could do so without injuring myself or anyone within a twenty foot radius), in spite of this, “my people” were not of fishing stock.

That is not to say that nobody ever fished. When I was maybe ten years old, one of my father’s best friends bought a share of a fishing boat the he kept at the marina in East Boston. It was a beautiful craft and I was lucky enough to ride in it a few times, bottom fishing for scup and flounder. But every so often, my father’s pal would convince my father that it was a good idea for him to get out on the water and put in a half-day of real fishing.

My father would arise on these rare occasions at the appointed hour, well before dawn, a time of day he did not particularly love, except when it was duck-hunting season and even then I always felt that he did that reluctantly. He would quietly sneak out of the house, although he had clearly already awakened my mother by his rustling about, but of course since my brother and I slept through thunderstorms, we were totally oblivious to his departure.  He then made the two-hour drive from our home in White River Junction, Vermont to Boston.

Most of the time, the only way we were able to tell that my father had been out fishing at all was that he would be sleepy after he’d returned and that he smelled of beer. There was, however, one remarkable day.

I woke up that morning, headed out to the ditch that I’d dug next to the barn and tried to eke out another dozen or so earthworms from the dirt so I could go fishing in the Connecticut River for bass. I enjoyed a pleasant day of fishing and returned in the latter part of the afternoon. My younger brother was nowhere to be seen, the driveway was empty, and only the family dog was there to greet me as I walked into the kitchen. My mother had left a note, telling me to rummage through the refrigerator for lunch.

After snagging a bite to eat, I wandered down to the other end of the house to the bathroom nearest my parent’s bedroom. You couldn’t exactly call it their bathroom, since it was located along a common hallway in the house, but it was the one closest to where they slept, so my brother and I always knew it basically was their turf. But because it was in close proximity to the living room as well, everyone used it. I opened the door and was immediately overwhelmed by a strong and familiar smell.

No, it wasn’t the septic system backing up. The odor that so thoroughly pervaded that little room, even with the window opened wide, was of fish! Like the little boy in the old joke who dug through the pile of manure his parents had shoveled into his bedroom as punishment, searching for the pony that he just knew had to be buried there; I whipped my eyes around the room. There was a fish in the bathroom!

And after a few seconds, I saw it. Lying along the length of the bottom of the bathtub was the largest striped bass I’d ever seen in my short life. It was half covered with ice and the one eye that was exposed appeared clear and black. My father had caught this monster just a few hours before! I was so excited. My father could fish! Who knew?  I ran into my parent’s bedroom and found him there, passed out on the bed.  My decision not to wake him then, to tell him how proud I was of him, was entirely motivated by self-preservation.

The next installment will be posted on January 20.

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